Jumping to a new platform in style.

Reviewed on iPhone

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January 14, 2013

The quality of downloadable games has increased enormously with the current generation of consoles. Journey and The Walking Dead were high up on many people’s lists for Game of the Year, and rightly so. Joe Danger was a quiet part of that revolution, first on PlayStation 3 and more recently on Xbox 360. Both the original game and Joe Danger: The Movie sold well and reviewed favourably, but neither really achieved the mainstream popularity enjoyed by some of its peers. The latest outing of Hello Game’s pint-sized daredevil comes not to consoles but to iOS, and Joe looks very much at home on handheld devices.

The thing about Joe Danger that often gets overlooked – the same also applies to its closest peer, Trials – is that while it looks like a racing game, it has the unmistakable heartbeat of an old school platformer. It’s really all about traversing the screen, from left to right, negotiating complex arrangements of deadly objects along the way. It's about timing. Levels are wonderfully inventive, slowly teaching you all the skills you need. And like its forbears – Mario and Sonic – Joe Danger has a vibrant, child-like sense of fun. From the catchy theme tune that will make you skip and whistle on your way to work, to the beautiful and bright visuals, the world of Joe Danger is a very happy one to be in. It looks fantastic on a retina display. You'd be hard-pressed to distinguish it from the console versions – it really looks that good.

But of course, Joe Danger’s real attraction lies not in those bouncing cactuses nor the Bruce Campbell-curve of Joe's chin, but in the gameplay itself. Thankfully, Hello Games is smart enough to know that Joe Danger couldn’t work on a touch device without a major rethink. Touchscreens are still too crude a device when it comes to twitchy platformers, where precision and responsiveness is a necessity; bad controls could turn even the best platformer into a frustrating mess. This pitfall is vaulted with trademark Joe Danger style: the speed of Joe’s bike is no longer under your control. It lets you focus on what really matters: ducking, jumping, pulling wheelies and, of course, performing flamboyant tricks. It's all done with one of the most intuitive control schemes you'll ever use. Hold down to duck; tap to jump; pull back for a wheelie; swipe for a flip. It's just makes sense.

Like a lot of mobile games, each stage has multiple objectives. There are three badges to earn, awarded for collecting all the coins, perfectly timing all the jumps, and finishing the event itself. But there's more. There are bubbles which you tap to unlock even more tokens. There are letters spelling D-A-N-G-E-R hidden around the environment, as well as the more craftily-hidden Hello Games logo. There's even a UFO that hovers about that can be taken down with a speedy finger jab. There's so much, in fact, that you'll miss quite a few of them on your first run, but you'll definitely return and try to collect them all, and this is partly down to the length of each level being well-designed and expertly measured. And all those coins you earn aren't for nothing, either; they can be spent on new characters, each of which have their own coin and score bonuses. There's 24 characters in total, including a zombie, Santa Danger and Bobo the Bear. Some of the characters are just palette swaps of featureless riders but still, there's plenty of variety in there.

You'll zip through the early events in no time, but the difficulty soon starts to ratchet up without ever becoming infuriating. You unlock later 'worlds' with tokens collected by beating tracks. But it's in these later stages that new mechanics are gradually introduced, upping the difficulty. You'll now also have to knock down spiky barriers and switch lanes with quick swipes and stabs, negotiate muddy patches with a well-timed wheelie and vault over tanks of ravenous sharks. Each 'world' is punctuated by a boss battle of sorts, in which you race against a ridiculous antagonist, including a monkey wearing a fez to a man-sized cupcake with sprinkles. It's basically a test of all the skills you've learned so far.

It's really hard to criticise Joe Danger Touch. It gets a lot of what it sets out to do very, very right. If you were being picky, you could say that it could make more of the accelerometer or that it's a shame it doesn't have a multiplayer component. But the former could mess up the tight controls and the latter could have diluted what is a fun, solitary adventure.

The Verdict

Joe Danger Touch should become the textbook example of how you adapt a console title for a mobile device. It isn't a lazy port. It's been lovingly crafted for its new platform, which it evidently understands. The controls have been sensitively adjusted to work with for a touchscreen, while the levels are finely constructed. Furthermore, it looks absolutely stunning and represents great value. Joe Danger Touch is essential.